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Although the deal is not official, it’s been widely reported that the Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors completed a trade prior to the 2008 draft. The Toronto Raptors will get six-time All-Star Jermaine O’Neal. The Indiana Pacers are adding four non-stars: T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, Maceo Baston and the draft rights to Roy Hibbert.

The general rule of thumb in the NBA is that the team that gets the All-Star in a trade is the team that comes out ahead. This rule is consistent with the idea of “Bobby Layne Rigidity”, offered by Walter Neale in a 1964 article (appearing in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and titled: “The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports”). According to Neale - as the name Bobby Layne Rigidity implies — a team cannot replace one good quarterback with two poor signal callers.

As Table One indicates, once upon a time J. O’Neal was an above average player, but not a “star”. Although NBA Efficiency still indicates he is above average, Wins Produced tells a different tale.

This is what I said about O’Neal last January.When we look at O’Neal’s career we don’t see a major star. His career WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] is above average, but a mark of 0.143 (prior to the 2007-08 season) pales in comparison to the top players in the game. Still, O’Neal has generally been a good player and he did lead his team in Wins Produced for three seasons.

What makes O’Neal “good” is his ability to get rebounds and block shots. Shooting efficiency, though, has been a consistent problem. Except for the 2002-03 season - again, his best year - O’Neal has always been below average with respect to getting his shots to go in the basket.

And this season the inefficient scoring issue has worsened. In addition, O’Neal is now below average on the boards. As a consequence, his overall productivity is now well below the average mark.

The Pacers in 2007-08 and 2008-09 Once we realize that J. O’Neal is not quite as productive as his star status suggests, this trade looks much better for Indiana. The team is losing a player whose wins production was in the negative range last season. And in return, the Pacers are getting Ford (WP48 of 0.160 last season), Nestrovic (WP48 of 0.104 last season), and Baston (WP48 of 0.161 in very limited minutes last season). Plus the Raptors gave up their first round pick in 2008 (Hibbert). Put it all together, and the Pacers look like a better team after this move.

It’s important to remember that - despite an underperforming O’Neal - the Pacers were not a terrible team in 2007-08.

Table Two indicates that this team’s Wins Produced (based on the team’s efficiency differential) summed to 37 wins. Had the Pacers won this many games the team would have been tied with the Hawks for the last spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs (Indiana actually finished one game back). Adding a very productive point guard and a serviceable center to this roster, while losing a player who didn’t produce any wins last year, has to help the Pacers return to the post-season.

And we have to remember that in addition to the O’Neal trade, the Pacers also acquired Jarrett Jack (0.098 WP48 last season) in a draft day trade that also netted guard Brandon Rush. Given these moves, the Pacers will now have the following collection of above average veterans in the rotation: T. J. Ford, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, and Jeff Foster. In addition, the Pacers have three more players who are right around average (Danny Granger, Jack, and Nesterovic). If Rush and Hibbert can come in and produced positive wins (not above average, just greater than zero), the Pacers should definitely improve.

The best Win Score draft goes to the Indiana Pacers for picking up solid players in Brandon Rush and Roy Hibbert. Both are NBA-ready and excellent Win Score prospects. Along with their trades, the Pacers are primed to pass .500 this season and are a franchise on the upswing.

If the analysis Doerr and I offer is to be believed, the Pacers are right now strong candidates to return to the post-season in 2009. Of course we will know more when the roster of the Pacers - and every other team - is finalized. At this point, though, the evidence suggests that losing O’Neal was a good move for the Pacers.

Does this mean that this trade is bad for the Raptors? I will try and answer that question in my next post. And that answer is not as clear as one might think.
- DJ

Re: Article about recent Pacers moves (Warning: Stats)

...the Pacers will now have the following collection of above average veterans in the rotation: T. J. Ford, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, and Jeff Foster. In addition, the Pacers have three more players who are right around average (Danny Granger, Jack, and Nesterovic).

Nice article, but did he rank Murphy as above average and Granger as around average? IDK, but IMO Murphy is a below average starter and Granger is slightly above average.

In any event, this article echoes what has been clear for a long, long time. JO is overpaid and overrated because he is inefficient on offense. OTOH, he is a good defensive player. With injuries, he is now arguably one of the most overpaid players in the NBA. ...although I suppose Tinsley is up there somewhere too. That's a lot of money to waste...

Re: Article about recent Pacers moves (Warning: Stats)

Very interesting...

I admit, while still a JO fan I began to see him more as a shot blocker and rebounder than a scorer. Even I've knocked him for his poor scoring efficiency. Still, he was the only real scoring threat this team had in the post which was one of the biggest reasons I wanted the Pacers to keep him for atleast one more season. At least now I feel alittle bit better knowing mgmt was able to make some improvements without giving up the farm. We'll see just how good the trades were for the Pacers come late December. If they're above .500 and going strong by Christmas, I'll give Larry Legand all the credit he deserves for doing a masterful job during the off-season.

Re: Article about recent Pacers moves (Warning: Stats)

Some of you may be glad to here, that based on Win Score, Bayless does not project to be a productive pro. And, as the article alluded to both Hibbert and Rush do project to be productive players. I'll try to find the link.

Re: Article about recent Pacers moves (Warning: Stats)

I hope they're right, but I wouldn't hang my hat on anything Wages of Wins comes up with.

WoW has a pretty significant statistical flaw in the model they use. They reward made shots and penalizes misses, which seems straightforward enough and accurate. The problem is they give full credit to the rebounder for a rebound but there is no deduction for team aspects. We see it all the time in games: a defensive rebound is a product of team defense, and when a 10 rebound a game guy is lost, his team doesn't become 10 rebounds worse. A good example of overrating rebonders is Jeff Foster, as much as I like him.

Per minute, Foster rated 2% more productive than Amare Stoudemire, 6% more productive than Tyson Chandler, and 28% more productive than Yao last year--all because statisically, rebonding is overrated in their analysis. WoW also made the argument that Dennis Rodman was more valuable than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen on the latter Bulls champions. That should tell you everything you need to know about WoW.

Re: Article about recent Pacers moves (Warning: Stats)

Some of you may be glad to here, that based on Win Score, Bayless does not project to be a productive pro. And, as the article alluded to both Hibbert and Rush do project to be productive players. I'll try to find the link.

Up front, some analysts will dispute Win Scores point guard ratings. Compared with other metrics, such as PER, there are distinct discrepancies in PG ratings. When looking at Win Scores ratings of PG prospects, similar disagreements appear against many prospect ranking lists. Current mock drafts have Jerryd Bayless as a consensus top 6 pick, while his collegiate .6 PAWS/40 does not stand out.

While Bayless is young and may improve, his turnover rates and weak rebounding suggest that he’ll likely not pan out to the all star guard many predict.

Re: Article about recent Pacers moves (Warning: Stats)

Nice article, but did he rank Murphy as above average and Granger as around average?

You're right. I think the statement is tied to the Wins per 48 minutes statistic. You probably remember that Granger's +/- was also low last season. He played more minutes than anyone else, and he was on the floor during a lot of the tough stretches against the opponent's starters.

Granger is our iron man, and that translates to low performance statistics on a team with a losing record. It's no bad reflection on his ability or personal performance.

And I won't be here to see the dayIt all dries up and blows awayI'd hang around just to seeBut they never had much use for meIn Levelland. (James McMurtry)

Re: Article about recent Pacers moves (Warning: Stats)

Also, on the site there is a graph, which adjusts the win scores according to strength of competition. Usually, a players win score goes down considerably when the strength of competition goes up. Rush's score stood out because it did not go down, and it may have gone up.

(I just spent ten minutes looking for the graph before giving up. The graph also says that it was pessimistic about Bayless's chances and with other prospects too. They were most optomistic of Love and Beasley. It's links from the article somewhere)

Create an ignore list. I know it may seem unneighborly. But you're here to talk about the Pacers, not argue with someone who's just looking for an argument. Most of the regular users on here make use (at least occasionally) of the "Ignore" feature. Just go to "Settings" -> "Edit Ignore List" and add the names.